


In the Dark, the Soul Can’t Hide

by Puniyo



Series: Code: Red Rain [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Dystopian World, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Violence, Prison like AU, crude language, dirty talking, not a sad ending, prisoner Yuzu, strawberry fest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 22:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15253452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puniyo/pseuds/Puniyo
Summary: The only way for Javier not to go back there (he definitely didn't want to go) was to make the prisoner in Room 223 talk. But he was no criminal, just a young man, with the weight of the world in his hands. And he was beautiful.A dystopian, prison-like AU featuring an interrogator Javier and a prisoner Yuzuru.





	In the Dark, the Soul Can’t Hide

**Author's Note:**

> Hello dear readers! I should know by now that I can't let my bunny plots overtake me (I already have too many WIPs --> Shalom is already throwing me daggers) but I had this idea of what if Yuzu couldn't see Javi but only hear him? It was also fueled by discussions with my partner in crime (she knows who she is :P) about cameras and Javi spying on Yuzu... haha! 
> 
> I have to say I quite like this dystopian AU and I wished I had more time to fully dedicate myself to it. But since I don't and I'm realistic, I decided to have a long oneshot. 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a pure work of FICTION and it does not reflect in any way the people mentioned. Read the tags please. If you are uncomfortable with them, click the 'go back' arrow. I promise I will not bite you.

‘Stop being naïve Javier.’

He draws his hands into fists, almost slamming them into the ebony table, or what it looked like a recently varnished ebony table, but he knew they would not dare to spend another column of their budget on such trivial, ornamental matters.

Triviality. What they always said it was the biggest enemy in the world of actuality and yet it was what their department was all about – being futile.

‘But he’s just a boy!’

Javier can’t contain the growing irritation in his voice. They had contacted him for an urgent _fostering of political amicability_ , some sort of liaison, highly confidential in nature and he even had to swear secrecy. Javier had a better term for it – torture.

‘He survived the _Awakening_.’

They throw him a file, the name _Yuzuru_ printed and stamped in capital letters but he refuses to read it, even open it.

‘We all did. I’m still here. All you fat asses are still overheating the smelly leather you shit on. He is just a boy. Do you want me to spell that for you? Or are your brains also just grease and–’

‘ _Javier_.’

Brian drops his head in an apologetic gesture though he would love to have said the exact same words that had fled Javier’s mouth, if not even worse. All the flared nostrils, crimson flustered and angry faces, sweat running from the oversized pores, and pineapple acne of the men in suits and ties made them look like gorillas. And that sight delighted Brian as much as Javier.

‘Pardon my son please. He had a rough day. You’re not the only ones to make an offer for him.’

‘But this is the only one that he will accept from now on.’

Javier releases a chuckle. A mocking blurt of air that rivalled a condescending laughter. He hoped it did so.

‘What makes you think you will have me? Your amazing reputation of screwing things up? Or your pre-disposition for hooking up little girls in public toilets?’

Brian this time puts a hand on Javier’s shoulder and squeezes it hard until it bruises and hurts. If there was something that the younger man had never learnt was to yield to others. Not even when his life was at stake. Like now.

‘You better keep a muzzle on your _protégé_ Brian, before he bites off his own tongue.’

 _Yours first before mine_. He wishes they could hear his thoughts as well.

‘You have no choice, Javier _de la Mancha_ ,’ the man seated in the chair furthest away continues, his smirk making Javier’s stomach convolute, ‘or you’ll be sent back to where you were before. I bet you enjoyed it, taking it up your ass every day. I heard you used to beg them like a lost puppy. They for sure will _love_ your nickname much more than we do.’

Javier gets up abruptly, ready to launch like a beast towards the idiot playing some sort of CEO – not a Chief Executive Officer, but a Constipation Enthusiastic Olympian. Snapping his neck into three parts wouldn’t be enough. Brian actually slaps him hard, the palm of his hand making contact with his face faster than the speed of sound. He falls back to his seat, the leather really stinking. He knows he doesn’t have another choice and he really doesn’t want to go back _there_ , so he bites his lips to suppress the murderous intent boiling in his blood while the marks of the fingers on his cheek keep deepening in color and in pain.

‘What happened to Plushenko?’

He finally manages to ask politely, albeit his voice is sharp like a dagger. If only words could cut.

‘He wasn’t as lucky as _your_ boy.’

 

 

Javier is surprised to find a familiar, but unexpected face on his first day of work. Work, as if what he was supposed to do be considered a proper job. He had met Patrick _there_ , on the first year he was confined (against his will obviously), their first encounter ending with a bloody nose and a broken tooth. He liked Patrick – arrogant and convinced that the heavens had the king’s axis reserved only for him, but he was also someone who had never denied him a favor and who would sneak him the best cigarettes, the best whiskey, and even the best stories of his dick at dawn when they couldn’t sleep.

That’s why he knows now that he can’t trust Patrick anymore. Because people always betray others. Just as he himself had done.

‘Look who’s here, _el matador_ of block E. How did you get out?’

Patrick has his arm open. Javier retributes the hug, crashing his arms on the shoulder blades for the reference.

‘The same way as you did. Still catching the dust in the wind with your hallelujahs?’

‘No one actually liked that song.’

‘Not when you sang it.’

‘Bastard.’

‘Sick.’

They return to their own personal bubbles, neither one stepping into each other’s personal space. It was more of psychological conditioning than pure respect for their shared past. Never get close to someone, Javier thought. He still thinks the same, every single second. _Never let anyone get close to you_.

‘Are you here for the boy? They must be desperate.’

Patrick still looked exactly the same, sleek brown hair, almost black, and always parted to the right. His complexion was tanner, he probably out on the sea more frequently now, or driving more on the convertible he always claimed he had. The only difference was the impeccable three-piece suit he wore now compared to the washed out jeans and _Ontario_ t-shirts.

‘Why doesn’t the boy talk?’

Javier follows Patrick in the long corridor, walls and more walls, neglected from any sunlight, only artificial fluorescent lamps that illuminated the tiles on the floor with their fake warm light that was colder than the winter breeze outside. It was some sort of basement, a floor beneath what was visible, shunned away from the real world, existing in a perpetual limbo. It had also a very sophisticated security system, cameras for constant footage, iris recognition, sensors for pressure on the balls of their feet, fingerprints and body temperature, everything Javier thought it was already obsolete but that never failed in their artificial intelligence. It made him uncomfortable, a foreign sensation tickling the skin at his nape and plucking the hairs on his forearms.

Lifeless, barren, in a comatose. Welcome to the new world.

‘He can’t understand us.’

‘He will have to understand me. I don’t plan to stay in this giant cooler for much longer.’

‘You’ll get used to it.’

‘I hope not.’

‘Then you better making him talk.’

Room 223 was a solitary confinement cell, as per Patrick’s words, he too already tired of creating euphemism. It was a rather large room, pristine clean and white, virginal but also sterile, not made to lock humans to repent their crimes but to slowly break them down until every single ounce of their rationality was tied to a leash that they could control. Javier steals a short glance at Patrick as he steps into a small compartment annexed to it, giving the perfect view to room 223 through a large glass pane. Patrick nods in mutual understanding and Javier swallows dry. Compared to this, _there_ suddenly seemed much better, a temporary resort for when the law was too obstinate and not fun.

‘He is all yours.’

Room 223 was not empty. Besides a single bed with ruffled sheets and a pillow on the floor, a boy sat on a chair in the middle of that space. Not a boy, a young man, his knees drawn to his chest and his head in between them. His mop of dark hair made pure contrast with the long white sleeved shirt and pants he wore. For brief seconds, Javier thought he was a wild animal camouflaged in the environment, looking for the right opportunity to escape.

‘Yuzuru, your new master is here.’

Patrick presses a few buttons on the control panel in front of them and his voice resonates through both spaces. The prisoner does not move.

‘Can he see us?’

‘The only thing he sees is white. They always blindfold him when they enter the room too.’

‘Why?’

Javier notices that Yuzuru has his ankle shackled as well. A boy deprived of any contact with the external world and with people. Was he some sort of god?

‘You should learn to not ask questions here Javier.’ Patrick points to his own temple. ‘He is not what you think of.’

‘I think of nothing.’

‘You never stop thinking. And I can bet it’s none of the options that are running through your software now.’

‘How long has he been here?’

‘I don’t know.’ Patrick is not lying. He inserts his own identification card to register their presence in the room before the alarm goes off. ‘He was here already when I came.’

There is an unforgiving silence between them, between their side of the glass, closer to life, and his side of the glass, a death sentence waiting to be executed. His side was a circus. Yes, a circus, Javier thought, the young man an attraction, fed minimally so he could perform and neglected when no one bought tickets, run by those walking warts of oil that he wished he could have had shoved something, _anything_ , up their asses so they would beg him to stop. And he wouldn’t.

‘Yuzuru.’

Javier calls him for the first time. There is still no response. Except for a twitch on that slender figure, on the arched spine and the on the forearms that hugged those knees.

‘He doesn’t open to people easily. You will not be different.’

As Patrick prepares to leave, his feet already stepping out of the door back to the corridor, Yuzuru moves his head, now resting on the side of his kneecap, his gaze latched on Javier’s direction. Even with the distance between them, his eyes rare black diamonds, a perfection on their own. His mouth opens and closes fleetingly but no sound comes out.

‘Patrick, you don’t need to come anymore. I would like my sessions with him alone.’

‘Be careful Javier. He’s their favorite.’

 

 

As promised, he is alone in the control room the next day, his back stiffed with the inhuman drafts that assault his neck and his vertebrae. Yuzuru is lying on the bed, his arms extended to the ceiling, throwing and catching an invisible ball.

‘Yuzuru.’

The young man stops playing with the air but he doesn’t reply either. Javier tries once again.

‘Yuzuru.’

‘Are you one of them?’

His voice is high pitched, not deep but not feminine as well, slightly breathy like notes on a bamboo flute, or the silk strings of an acoustic guitar. He had thought it would be more boyish, with a lisp and stuttering, but no, it was as if his voice was honed before each syllable.

‘No.’

‘Then go. Now. They are coming.’

‘Who?’

Two armed men appear on the door, pointing with their (greasy) chins and black shades for Javier to leave room 223, the sight of their _Glocks_ in their shoulder holsters a clear indication of their authority. Amateurs, he thought, as if he couldn’t tackle the two thugs wannabes with a single sweep. He had no intention in obeying them.

But he would obey Yuzuru.

Before he left, one of the men at the meeting was blindfolding Yuzuru, the hideous sausage fingers pulling the dark strands and lingering for too long behind his ears. He notices again the young man’s lips moving subtly and just like before, he can’t decipher the words.

 

 

Yuzuru is sprawled on the floor, arms and legs extended to the sides, fingers spread apart, like a five-pointed star in the middle of the vast bareness. Javier thinks he is da Vinci now, mapping the young man in the universe. He could add a few feathers and make him a swan, or inclusive a pair of wings and make him an angel. To fly away – that must be his dream. Probably.

‘Yuzuru.’

‘Where is Plushenko?’

‘He won’t come here anymore.’

‘Did you kill him?’

‘No.’

‘Did they kill him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will they kill you?’

Yuzuru stands up. His long limbs give the impressions that he’s taller than he seems. He is pale, his skin robbed of the warmth of summer and the caresses of the moon. His veins are clear on his neck, pulsating with an elixir of survival Javier knows not where he drinks from. Perhaps he feeds on paradoxes, on how thin his wrists are but how his steps are tread with such force Javier can feel under his desk; on how he shivers from the gelid walls and ventilation fans of air that smelled of chlorine but how he pierces Javier’s mind, without seeing him, with a burning flame on his irises; on how room 223 withers any hope and yet he is beautiful.

So beautiful, Javier thinks, more than any person he has seen outside, in his childhood, there, any of his acquaintances, any of the women he has fucked, any of the men he has marked _inside_ and their mouths too.

Yuzuru puts his hand on the glass pane, his fingerprints clearly smeared on the surface.

‘Can you touch me?’

Javier knows it is impossible but he is already reaching his hand to the same spot, the crystal slab the only thing separating them. He wonders whether Yuzuru is oblivious to his face, his person nothing more than a few notes in a scale of a few octaves.

Another machine, another software, another hardware piece that can be thrown away to a dumpster because he wasn’t even worth going to the recycle bin.

‘I’m sorry.’

Javier is surprised at the apology, even more at the tiny droplets on Yuzuru’s eyelashes and the silent tears that ran down his cheeks, sluggishly and lethargically, painting his cheeks with a natural gloss. He wants to lick them back to his eyes and drink the salt in them.

‘Why?’

‘For doubting you.’

‘I’m not lying.’

Yuzuru kisses the glass, the same spot where his fingers were just a few seconds ago. It was as if those plump, carnation lips were directly on Javier’s skin.

‘You are. But not to me.’

 

 

‘Why do you keep coming here?’

‘I can’t go anywhere else.’

‘They want information.’

‘That only you can provide.’

‘And you are not going to make me talk?’

‘Will you talk?’

‘No.’

 

 

‘What is your favorite fruit?’

‘Strawberries.’

‘Because they are sweet?’

‘Because they don’t have seeds.’

‘Are you serious?’

Yuzuru turns to his pillow, blocking Javier the view of his face.

‘Because they must be protected. Because all the plagues want them. Because they die too soon even when we love them.’

‘Have you tried one before?’

‘Once. I’ve already forgotten their taste.’

 

 

‘They will keep you here forever.’

‘They don’t want me alive. All they want is to save themselves.’

‘Is that why they come every night?’

‘Yes, to loot and plunder. Doesn’t your law protect them?’

‘Stop this Yuzuru.’

‘And what? Submit and cry for help? Wait for a knight in shiny armor?'

‘Tell them something.’

‘You’re just like them.’

‘Do you think you can escape?’

‘In the dark, my soul will live forever.’

Javier slams his hands onto the desk, finally the residual anger in him bursting forth. What he is not admitting is the inquietude in him, the worms that gnaw his intestines alive every time he sees the blindfold and the thought of Yuzuru at their mercy.

‘Isn’t there anything you want to live for?’

‘I’ve forgotten already.’

‘Lies.’

‘You’re the one lying _Javi_.’

‘I’m not helping them.’

‘You’re helping yourself. And your guilt. When will you let it go?’

Javier flees the room immediately.

 

 

It’s been a week since Javier has talked to Yuzuru. They had been satisfied so far, saying that the boy had been more docile, more tamed, more _open_ to their bureaucratic surveys and thorough interrogations, although he still refused to cooperate verbally. Javier wanted nothing more than to vomit on their piss waxed shoes and drown them in that pool of voluntary protein spill. He wasn’t a murdered, but he would gladly become one for Yuzuru.

‘Yuzuru.’

The young man is seated in the same position as the first time he saw him, knees drawn to his chest. His eyes are listless and receded to their sockets, a ghost version of his former self.

‘I thought you wouldn’t come back.’

‘Did you receive it?’

Yuzuru retrieves a small pastel blue box from under his bed and pulls his chair to sit near the glass pane. Javier had to bribe (which in his own vocabulary is synonym of threatening) the usual chef who brought his food to sneak the package in, without looking at its contents and without letting the lard leeches suspect of it. An organ for each word he would hear in case this was found out. And Javier made sure the vital ones wouldn’t be the first ones to be served on his own frying pan.

‘I haven’t opened it.’

‘Good boy.’

Yuzuru smiles and chuckles for the first time.

‘Do you like being praised?’

‘I like when you praise me.’

‘Open it.’

Yuzuru clumsily pulls off the paper, afraid he might have ruined what was inside. It was a three-layer sponge cake, filled with Chantilly cream and sliced strawberries. It smelled of freshly picked sweet grass and honey. Of milk and melted butter.

‘What is this?’

‘A strawberry shortcake. I thought that was obvious.’

Yuzuru stares at the multi-tier dessert in all directions, rotating the box in his hands, on top and on the sides. From below too, he laughing with ease when his eyes only see plain blue carton, having forgotten momentarily that paper was not transparent.

‘Are you not going to try it?’

‘Can I?’

Javier nods. He waits for Yuzuru to take the first bite but he is static on the chair, eyes glued to the red fruits. Oh right, he can’t see him nodding.

_When will you see me Yuzuru?_

‘Tell me how it tastes like.’

Yuzuru takes the entire strawberry on the top and sucks the cream at its pointy but smooth end. He pops the whole fruit to his mouth, pulling out slightly the roundest flesh at the green calyx, resting it on his parted lips.

Javier blushes as the young man is unwilling to let the fruit slide down his throat, letting the new sensation stay as long it can on his pink tongue, one or two seeds on it. His pants are suddenly too tight and he pulls his zipper down, just a little, trying his best to avoid any sound. To breathe better he convinces himself, as if his lungs had descended suddenly to his groin.

‘It tastes like you.’

‘Me?’ Javier almost lets a moan escape his mouth, his hardened manhood pushing against his briefs, his balls becoming more and more tense. Tasted like him?

‘Crunchy and sour.’

Javier lets out a heavy sigh that had lodged on his chest and laughs. Yuzuru laughs too. He keeps eating the cake, pulling out each layer, lapping the white cream first, then the sponge, reserving the strawberries for last.

‘Don’t you like them?’

‘I love them.’

Yuzuru touches the glass window as a sign of gratitude, his finger tainted the surface with leftover cream. His instincts are on his taste buds now and he dances his tongue over the glossy pane, his saliva mixing with the cake filling and coating his fingers, his nails and (he hoped to) Javier’s own hand.

‘Do you know why they are keeping me here?’

‘You survived the _Awakening_.’

Javier suspects it is not the only reason, seeing how he wasn’t immune to his latent sensuality, to how he moved with a cat-like agility and his smile, his beautiful smile, awoke butterflies in his gut, that quickly migrated to his loin and fueled his erection. The room was sterile, but Javier can only imagine now how Yuzuru would fill the room with life if they made love, his falsettos pleading for more attention as he rammed further in in his tightness while praising how _good_ he was, how slippery his entrance would be, how intoxicating his own semen would taste.

‘They could care less about it.’

‘Why do they want you here then?’

‘Draw something.’

‘What?’

‘Draw something. On a piece of paper, on the computer in front of you. Anywhere.’

Javier pulls out his own phone, sketchpad out, he swipes his finger back and forth, drawing nothing a few skewed yellow lines all misaligned and out of place.

‘Yellow doesn’t suit you. Choose another color. And coordination doesn’t seem to be your strong point.’

This time he opts for purple, the color of the kings, and he charts another polygon.

‘A purple triangle. Is that a cry for a threesome?’

‘Can you actually see what I’m doing?’

Yuzuru shakes his head in negation. Four walls and white. A binary world. He almost feels pity and misery for himself.

‘Draw a star.’

‘I’m making one.’

‘You’re not.’

‘I need to connect the dots.’

‘Cross to the right.’

‘I am.’

‘You’re going to the left.’

‘Fine. It’s done.’

‘Yes. A disproportioned cube.’

Javier has really not followed instructions and drawn a cube, or what he thinks it must be a 3D figure.

‘Do you read minds?’

‘Only mine.’

‘Can you really not see me?’

‘I can’t.’

‘How do I look like?’

‘Bald, a huge brown spot on your nose, an eye made of opal, one hand with six fingers.’

‘Is that your type?’

‘Always dreamed of.’

They stare at each other. Javier at Yuzuru, and Yuzuru at the crystal division.

‘Bring me cake again.’

 

 

‘Don’t you miss you home?’

‘Home?’

‘Yes, your own corner in the box. You could grow strawberries there I bet.’

Yuzuru crisscrosses his legs, the balls of his feet barely brushing against the immaculate tiles on the floor, almost blinding for their brightness.

‘I miss the ice.’

 

 

‘Have you ever tried to escape?’

He is quiet and smiling pitifully. Yuzuru’s head nods in agreement but his eyes shimmer with the saddened reflection of failed attempts and dire consequences.

‘Don’t say it Javi.’

‘Why not?’

‘You will not come back.’

‘I want to touch you Yuzuru.’

‘Like them?’

‘No!’ Javier is disgusted at them, at their cyst overrun bodies and vesicles of excrement that hung from their bellies, at their parasitic teeth and sponge brains. A race to be eradicated. He would soon, with his own hands.

‘Then how?’

‘With all of me, until you came on my hand and my mouth, and I would keep holding you, crying and begging for another round of stimulation, and more. You would kneel on your own essence, paint yourself with it and I would eat you Yuzuru, all of you.’

 

 

Javier’s fingers are tapping the surface of Brian’s desk as the older man finishes skimming through the internal maps of the department, all roads leading to room 223. These are electrical networks, security grids with detailed influx plans of biometrics data, simple architectural routes and topographical floor markings.

‘Your skills were not lost _there_.’

Only better.

‘Do you think it’s possible?’

‘And risk your life? They will not return you like a defect product Javi.’

‘And leave Yuzuru at their mercy?’

‘He’s their trump card. They will never hurt him.’

He throws a crisp click of tongue, his impatience ready to snap.

‘He is not of our concern. Remember your mission Javi.’

Javier grits his teeth and shakes his head. His whole body trembles in agony of his impotence, in shame at witnessing the blindfold and be turned on. The guilt in him jolts his mind with an excruciating headache and he lets out a dejected cry, the howl of a wolf taken from its forest.

‘ _Please_ Brian.’

 

 

‘Yuzuru’

Yuzuru jumps from his bed, hastily walking to the table in the middle of the room and sitting on its surface, his feet dangling in different directions. A blue box is again there for him. He seems jittery, restless, a slight blush on his cheeks as he finally hears Javier’s voice resonate through his own prison.

‘You’re late.’

‘Are you counting the seconds now too?’

‘Only on your days.’

He opens the box, a confused frown of eyebrows and he stares at the glass pane.

‘What?’

‘There are no strawberries.’

‘That was the only one left.’

Yuzuru pops a single blueberry on his mouth, sweet and mushy, deliciously petite. Not appropriate for what he had in mind though.

‘You don’t like them?’

‘I thought you liked to watch me suck the red tip.’

Javier is astonished at the reversal of roles. A slice of cake for the exchange of a pornographic favor – was he the one with the reins or the one being tied up?

‘You said you wanted to touch me. Do it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Tell me what to do.’

Javier swallows dry, thinking of all the possibilities (and impossibilities). He was the master puppeteer, given the strings by his own marionette, which wasn’t a doll but Yuzuru, the young man he could see but never make contact, the angel ripped of his wings and forced with the horns of the devils.

‘Tell me. Let me feel you too.’

Javier can’t remain seated. He stands up, takes a couple of steps as if moving to a Latin rhythm and for the first time, he punches the cold crystal barrier between them, cursing it under his breath.

‘Drop your pants. Don’t take them off.’

‘Are you afraid I’m going to run away?’

‘It’s to keep you from trashing around.’

‘Do you think I will hide from your sight?’

‘Not if I was the one to fuck you. Now do it.’

Yuzuru unties the knot of his sweatpants, Javier’s commands an ultimatum to the thread of his own sanity. He lowers the white fabric just enough for the voice that has no face to see he doesn’t sport any underwear, his line of pubic hairs adorning his growing erection. He gasps as he buttocks touches the wintry surface of the table, his hand brushing the forgotten dessert right next to him, smearing his fingers with the buttery cream.

‘Lick them clean.’

Yuzuru brings the stained fingers to his lips, the tip of his tongue touching the fold between them. He plays with them in his mouth, popping them in and out eagerly, a trail of saliva down his chin, trickling his Adam’s apple and the vein at his collarbone.

Javier wonders how his lips would taste. And how much he would need to bite them to make them swollen, plump, sore, so when he slid between them, they would engulf him even more in the scorching heat of his passion.

‘Lift your shirt. I want to see your nipples.’

The young man tries to take it off but he’s discouraged; instead, he gobs it, letting the blueberry juices, the cream and his own saliva soak in it. He pinches a nipple, not hard, tender, and it brightens at his touch. He closes his eyes against the fabric – a discreet mess of lust and residual embarrassment of being exposed to Javier.

Javier is not content with the present disarray. He wants total wreckage.

‘Don’t touch yourself. You’re not allowed to.’

Yuzuru whimpers in defiance but the orders are absolute. His member is already up and kneading against his navel, pearly essence leaking from it.

It would look divine with a gold ribbon tied around it, Javier thinks.

‘ _Javi_.’

‘Open for me Yuzuru. Use your fingers. I want to see them going in that pucker of yours. Your fingers are my tongue _Yuzu_ , slowly, yes, I will not neglect any of your muscles, supple and constricting around me. I’m melting into you Yuzuru.’

The hem of the shirt slips away from his teeth as Yuzuru cries loudly at his own caresses and climaxes. No, it was Javier and his honey-coated voice, his strawberry-laced phrases and his blueberry-glazed promises that penetrated and filled his insides with the carnality he was robbed of every night.

Javier has never heard of a more beautiful cry. He too comes in his jeans, the growing wetness sticking to his inner thighs as he too releases a primal sob – one that he thought was long buried and never to be unearthed.

‘Finish the cake.’

‘With you in me?’

‘I would feed it to your cock if I could.’

 

 

‘Aren’t we enjoying it too much?’

Javier flinches at the hand on his shoulder as he finishes pulling up his zipper in front of the urinal. It was another hand of minced meat and decaying nerves and he is not sure which smells is more repugnant – the dried piss in the corners or the rotten worm-like thumb.

‘I saw what you did you him.’

Javier jerks away the filthy arm from him and he dashes to the door, assured that he would faint if he caught just a glimpse of the face behind the black mask.

‘He will be the one to suffer for this misconduct.’

‘What?’

‘Do you job Javier.’

‘He is innocent.’

‘His punishment has started long ago.’

‘He knows nothing!’

The masked man brushes past Javier, another pet on his shoulder. An unspoken threat he understood too well.

‘He chose to protect you.’

Javier runs to the nearest stall and empties his stomach in the toilet, the gastric acid corroding his throat, the bile sour and bitter lodged in his palate.

He finally understands what Yuzuru tried to tell him the first day, the message finally recovered from the infinite silence between them.

_Run away._

 

 

‘It’s too risky Javier.’

‘I will go anyway, Brian.’

‘I can’t make you enough time.’

‘It’s enough to save him.’

‘I don’t want to lose you again.’

‘Tracy would have approved! She would have helped me!’

‘I want to help you too!’

‘Then do it!

 

 

‘What are you doing Javi?’

‘Writing you a letter.’ He was indeed scribbling a few sentences.

‘A love letter?’

‘A ransom.’

Yuzuru once again is catching an invisible air ball that he throws to the ceiling and dodges on the way down. He hisses a couple of times and grunts when it hits his face.

‘Tell me good things Javi.’

‘What things?’

‘Just things.’

Javier chooses to remain in silence and he checks his watch. Ten minutes left. He inserts a fake identification card (tampered by the courtesy of Brian) on the control panel, praying it would give him access to the mother brain for the security system. He changes the frequency of their communication channel and the momentarily screech it makes it’s so excruciatingly piercing, he thinks he might have gone deaf.

‘Yuzuru.’

The younger man has fallen from his bed, his hands clutching his ears, his body coiled into a fetal position.

‘Yuzuru!’

‘Javi? What happened just now?’

‘Let’s get out of here.’

Yuzuru supports his weight on his elbows and looks dumbfounded at the foggy glass division.

‘Didn’t you want to hear good things? Let’s go out Yuzuru. Let’s watch the sky become lilac and purple as the night comes to overtake the day. Let’s go to the sea and dive until we can’t hold our breaths any longer.’

‘It’s useless.’

‘Let’s make a garden and plant strawberries. The big ones that you like. Let’s go to the ice. You said you liked the ice, didn’t you? The ice where you can skate and I can fall.’

‘They will find us again.’

‘They won’t.’

‘They will. Like all the other times. You will–‘

‘Nothing will happen to me.’

His watch rings at his pulse. Five more minutes. Security barriers A are down.

‘Let’s go home Yuzu.’

For the first time, he longs for what is beyond the white walls of room 223.

‘Will you meet me on the other side?’

‘I’m already waiting for you.’

Yuzuru walks steadily to the door, sweat pouring on his palm as he grabs the electronic handle. It doesn’t burn his skin or poisons the tip of his fingers. He pulls it down tentatively, knowing too well that hope is the most skilled assassin.

It opens.


End file.
